Art Attack: Luminato set to lose $3.5 million in funding

On Tuesday, the provincial government handed down its proposed budget, and the arts received some pretty heavy blows. The Luminato festival, which was expecting to receive $4 million next year and $4.5 million in 2014, will see that funding cut by $3.5 million over the next two years. Also targeted were the AGO, the ROM, the McMichael Canadian Art Collection and the Royal Botanical Gardens in Burlington, all of which are expected to lose one per cent of funding in 2012 and two per cent in 2013. Remember when art mattered? It apparently doesn’t anymore (or at least it matters one or two per cent less than it did last year).